by Colin Taber
No matter, he could check on their get during his next visit.
And then a dark smile broke his stern lips.
But for now...
For now rose the hungry fire and he would burn her mother, and if he found no satisfaction in that, he could always throw her daughter on the pyre as well. His gaze drifted as he thought, coming to a stop where it found a half empty barrel of oil.
He’d finish her casting now!
Anton strode across and tipped the barrel on an angle so he could wheel it along on its rim. He began moving it, it rumbling as it rolled over the cobblestones, bringing it closer to the witch and her coming end.
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Vilma watched her daughter, the young man holding her tight. The couple were lost in each other as they mouthed her message of binding and love.
A smile split her blistered lips. The Inquisition had set many magical blocks about the pyre to stop any offensive sorcery, but because of her casting’s harmless nature she’d been able to bypass them. It seemed that it had never occurred to the heartless bastards that someone might cast a love spell while being burnt alive.
Finally, it was time to end her own suffering...
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Inquisitor Anton growled, “Put this in you!” And he kicked over the barrel, setting free its dark juice to spray onto the bonfire’s edge.
The monks cheered.
The crowd cried out in horror.
And the fire around Vilma erupted into a ball of fury that lifted up to wash over her.
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Her work done, she freed her perception and fell away from her mortal form to escape the pain, screams, and roar of her own boiling blood rushing through doomed veins. It was like backing away from two open furnace doors, her eyes, and into a dark cellar. With each moment the heat grew weaker and her view of that world diminished as she fell into the cool and soothing blue-tinged darkness of the next – the celestial.
She sensed for the others around her, seeking those also being fed to the flames. She grabbed at their desperate souls, mercifully dragging them and their attention away from their failing bodies, and into the cool of the afterlife.
Vilma would let them rest soon, but not before she used them to stir the emotions of those left behind. They needed to feed the crowd's anger – just as oil had been used to feed the fire. What she was doing would spare them the agony they'd felt, but also block their mortal forms from dying. The results would not be pretty.
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Back in Market Square, the spiritless bodies convulsed and ruptured in a gory display. At the same time the crowd's anger also bucked to grow wild and ugly.
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Anton shifted uncomfortably. He'd sensed the passing of souls, yet their blackened bodies still jiggled, moaned, and burst amidst the flames. It was as if they’d become zombies, the flesh alive, but the bodies without spiritual owners. Worse still, he could sense the shift in the crowd's mood; from one of horror to a deepening outrage.
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In the celestial, her spirit smiled.
Tonight, it wouldn't be the witches and innocents of Ossard being slaughtered. Not any more. Tonight, it would be the false moralists of the Church of Baimiopia's hated Inquisition. And as for the Inquisitor who’d personally lit the pyre, the vile man taking power from the pain he inflicted – she'd get her own revenge.
By My Own Hand
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A Belated Introduction
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I am Juvela Van Leuwin, daughter of Inger Van Leuwin, and granddaughter of a woman burnt at the stake for being a witch. It seems that misfortune and tragedy are as common to my blood as its colour – and I assure you, it is red.
By my own hand I write this record using the skills that they forbade us to learn. For them, the ruling order of Ossard, such things as reading and writing were reserved for the mercantile-noblemen, most especially if they were of Heletian birth. In that, you see, is my failing, for I am both not a man, nor Heletian.
The Inquisition may have been expelled from the city after the riots, but the Church of Baimiopia and its prejudices were not.
My Flet parents taught me, their beloved only daughter, what they thought adequate. They showed me the basics of letters and numbers, but no more, worried if I learnt too much I’d be caught out. Needless to say, I’ve since improved my talents.Today, with the skills they forbade me to have, I sit down to tell the tale of how their mighty city, the city-state of Ossard, fell.
It all started about six years before my coming of age. The first signs were subtle, hidden amidst unrelated events and missed by most. It was eyes further afield that had spied the beginnings of the corruption. Those same eyes, Lae Velsanan eyes, imparted a warning that would save me. For that, despite their terrible part in the coming catastrophe, I will forever be grateful.
We begin in the late summer of the year 509 Encarnigo Krienta (seventeen years after the Burnings). I had just entered my teens...
Part I
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Ossard, City of Merchant Princes
1
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A Growing Shadow
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My mother loved children. She cried if one suffered hurt and fell into despair at the news of an innocent’s death. It didn't matter if they were strangers and news of their fate arrived as gossip, or if they stood as family or friends. Sometimes the grief came as a long and unwinding spiral of cold and numb mourning, others carried the explosive rawness of heart-wrenching cries and wails. There were always tears.
I hated it!
Every year that mourning built through Ossard’s icy winter and thawing spring, only to mature into a deepening madness that rose with summer’s heat.
Summer...
Those balmy days brought the fever; Maro Fever. It spread from the docks and through the slums to take the weakest into its burning embrace. It loved the young, for winter had already found the old to claim.
During the summer, instead of my mother hearing of a child killed in some misfortune several times a season she’d hear of fever deaths every other day. We tried to keep such news from her, it trapping her at home, yet the sounds of passing funeral processions marked by the slow beat of mourning drums could not be kept at bay.
Poor Inger, so sensitive and emotional, so busy feeling other peoples’ pain – it almost drove her mad. Then one summer the real problems began...
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Child-theft is a coward's crime; that's what my mother said.
At first I didn't even understand it. I mean, how could you? Why would someone want to steal someone else's child? But then it happened, marking the beginning of Ossard's fall from grace.
A little boy was the first to be taken. An infant girl went missing half a season later, stolen straight from her crib. More followed, and they were all Flets. I didn't know any of the victims, but I couldn’t miss their families' grief.
The outrages went on, haunting the alleys of Newbank – the squalid Flet quarter of the city. The Heletian authorities ignored it as they did all the problems that plagued our district. In the end, any attempt at handling it fell to our guild, the Flet Guild, who unofficially governed everything on our side of the river. Still, as skilful as they were at dealing with our other problems, this was one that they couldn’t overcome.
So the kidnappings continued, as did the misery they delivered.
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Running our household kept Mother busy, it being one of the most prosperous in Newbank, and even of note in the larger and wealthier Heletian side of Ossard. She tried to keep an eye on me, as did Father, but that along with the family business, an inherited importing concern, just took too much of their time. One of our two maids could have watched over me, but they couldn't hope to defend me. If I was to be safe, it needed to be at the hands of someone suited to the task.
Father found someone, a man of battle that came recommended as honest and able. Still, on the day he started, none of us were sure.
Like any young adolescent
I came with some attitude. At Sef's introduction, I displayed as much rebelliousness as I could muster.
“A bodyguard?” I asked.
“Just for now,” said my father.
Mother nodded, her movements anxious.
I said, “It's because of the kidnappings, isn't it?”
Father nodded.
Mother said, “No, not at all, and it's just for a short while.”
I turned to face him – my bodyguard.
He stood tall and solid, in his late twenties, with blonde hair and blue eyes spaced between the occasional scar. He tried to smile to win me over. It sat strangely on such a big man, one made bigger by an armour of leathers, and a scabbarded sword at his side. He looked like he'd just come from the bloody battlefields of Fletland, our people's war-torn homeland across the sea, so much so that I checked his boots for mud – to my disappointment they were clean.
He shifted, moving his imposing bulk awkwardly on our polished floorboards and setting them to softly groan. He just didn't belong in our civilised household, or for that matter any home.
I smiled; having him around would drive my mother mad. “Well, I guess it could be fun having my own bodyguard.”
Sef's smile broadened.
Mother sighed in relief.
Father grinned. “How about we give it a try by letting him take you to the markets?”
I was making it too easy for them, so I let my enthusiasm fade. “I guess...”
Sef's smile faltered, making me feel bad. It was my parents I wanted to toy with, not him. He obviously didn't have a lot of experience with children.
I found a grin. “I guess. He looks like he could handle anything.”
Their faces lit up.
Then I went on, “And he's got a great sword.” I turned to him. “Can I hold it?”
He looked to my parents.
My mother paled while my father shook his head.
That’s when I delivered the punch line, “Killed anyone with it?
Mother nearly fainted.
He squatted, coming eye to eye with me. “Only those who deserved it.”
I looked into his eyes, cold pools that had seen a lot of worse things than a spoilt girl of thirteen.
Well, if I needed a bodyguard, I guess he could do the job. He was bigger than Father, and easily worth two maids and my mother in a fight.
Father filled the silence. “The markets then?”
Sef’s smile dropped, now all business. “The markets.”
I took a step back, my bravado dead.
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All four of us took the family coach, Sef up front with the driver while my parents sat inside with me. My parents spoke of nothing in particular, just mundane household matters, both nervous as we headed out from home and away.
We arrived under overcast skies at the edge of Market Square. Crowds and stalls filled its wide expanse, all the way to its bordering sides marked by Ossard’s grandest buildings; the guildhalls; Cathedral; and Malnobla, the residence of the lord of the city-state.
Sef helped my mother from the coach and then reached up for me. He tried to be careful, but his strong hands held too firm, seeing me twist against them. In response he tightened his grip.
I gasped, “You’re hurting me!”
Father frowned. “Come now, Juvela, be good.”
Mother stood to his side, worried but silent.
Then we set out.
Sef walked a pace beside me, or a step or two behind. He watched the crowd for trouble, and my parents for directions, but more than anything he watched me.
Mother looked at some cloth, and then some fruit, before we headed towards the livestock stalls. Amongst them we found a boar running around an otherwise empty pen. Alone and in a strange place, the brutish animal had become frenzied, to the amusement of a small crowd.
The owner was trying to calm it, but the tusked beast lunged at his handling attempts. We watched for a while as the owner called in two men to help. Armed with long poles, they began forcing it into a corner. Soon they'd have it. With the chase over we moved on, my mother not wanting to watch its likely death.
I led Sef and my parents down a narrow path that cut between two banks of pens, some empty, while most hosted goats, pigs, or sheep.
My mother complained, “Juvela, the animals’ filth is everywhere!”
“But there are lambs ahead?”
Father looked to his women and sighed, then noticed my shoes already caked in muck. “Juvela, go and have a look, but take Sef. We'll walk around and meet you on the other side.”
Sef offered an awkward smile.
My mother paled. “Can we leave her alone?”
Father put a hand to her back as he began to steer her away. “She's not alone, she’s with Sef.”
I skipped down the path. I could see a dozen lambs in the last pen.
Sef followed, but also kept his distance.
The lambs huddled in straw near the fence, it made from a tight weave of oleander canes. I went to them, squatting down as I slipped a hand through the lattice to offer the nearest my fingers.
Sef walked past, coming to a stop only paces away.
The owner of the lambs, a fat Heletian, approached him to see if he represented a possible sale. They talked while I patted the closest animal, marvelling at its innocent face.
That's when I sensed something behind me, it cold and sudden.
I looked down by my side to see a pair of black boots. A man stood there with his back to Sef, but Sef also had his back to him.
The man wore a dark cloak to protect against the coming rain that the sky promised, yet it also harboured something else – something akin to the chill that lurked in Sef's eyes. Earlier, I'd been a little spooked by Sef, but right now this stranger had me terrified.
He said, “It seems you've made some friends.”
I just stared up at him.
“There are other friends you can make...”
Sef's voice came firm and hard, along with the ring of his sword as he unsheathed it. “She has enough friends, sir, such as me.”
He'd escaped the lamb owner, moved around, and begun to push between us. I got up and stepped back behind him, putting a hand to his beefy hip.
Screams sounded from the other end of the pens. The three of us ignored them, caught up in our own intrigue.
Sef and the man locked eyes. At the same time, I swear, the very air chilled.
I looked down at the stranger's feet, his boots dulled by a sudden frost as strands of mist rose to drift about.
That wasn’t right...
Sword in hand, Sef squared his shoulders and announced, “You’ll need to do better than that!”
The stranger showed some surprise.
I didn't understand what they were doing, and had no time to think as I was distracted by a second set of screams. They were followed by a loud and bestial cry.
I turned to discover that the baled up boar was now charging towards us. Pink froth ran from its snout while blood streamed down its side; behind it, the beast’s owner lay tripped up amidst the pen’s ruined fence.
I cried out, “Sef!”
Following the narrow lane, the boar drew closer.
Sef hissed at the stranger, his sword held between them, “Get gone!”
The stranger chuckled. “So much to worry about!”
Sef said, “I can manage.”
“But so little time!”
The boar neared. We only had moments.
I looked for a way through the fence, but the gaps in the lattice were too small, and the canes too thick. The lambs on the other side scattered. “Sef!”
The boar was upon us.
He swung his sword up from between him and the stranger, half-turned, and then brought it down from over his shoulder and out to his side. The move left me under his arm, and between him and his steel.
The beast reached us as the blade’s tip flashed down.
The sword caught the boar on its gr
eat wet snout, with the charging animal’s momentum driving its head onto the razor-sharp blade. Sef held it stiffly, forcing its tip into a gap between muck-covered cobbles where he strained to wedge it.
The boar opened its own skull and then collapsed into the path’s mess. After a moment of spasmodic kicking, a wet squeal, and the spray of blood, it finally succumbed to a quick death.
Not wasting the chance, the stranger lunged around Sef's side and grabbed for me.
I screamed.
Sef brought his knee up to hit the stranger under the jaw, and at the same time lifted his sword and brought the hilt down on top of the man’s head. He then turned and stepped back to pin me protectively between his back and the fence.
The stranger slumped to the ground.
Sef’s blade hung in the air in front of me, half its length red. He asked, “Juvela, are you alright?“
I whispered, “There's blood on your sword!”
“Juvela, your parents are coming. Tell me you're alright!”
I took a deep breath. “Yes!”
He stepped away from the fence, freeing me, and then squatted down to be eye to eye. “It's alright, it’s the boar's.” He smiled.
Still giddy with fright, I threw my arms around his neck to hug him.
He patted my back with his free hand. “Your parents are nearly here. Please be brave, I really need this job.”
I nodded.
Sef stood as we noticed that the cloaked man had gone.
I said, “He’s gotten away!”
Sef frowned. There wasn’t a trace of him.
My parents arrived.
Father cried out, “Well done!”
Mother dropped down to her knees in front of me. “Are you alright?” She was trembling and close to tears.
“Yes,” I said, “I like Sef, he's great!”
Father laughed and nodded, while Mother sobbed with relief.
That night they discussed the terms of Sef's employment over a roast boar dinner.
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