Entry #422354, added on 04-28-06 @ 10:43 pm EDT
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| Betdes Acurey | Entry #422354 |
Betdes sat slumped against the far wall of his cell, his body twisted away from the bright beams of light that shone in from the window above. His eyes were more comfortable with the dark which the priests said was just another sign of the evil residing inside him. Maybe it was. He had spent so many years trying to be exactly what they wanted him to be and doing what they said he was supposed to do and yet he couldn’t stop himself from being what he was. The black horns still stood out prominently amidst his dark hair and his eyes were still red, obvious signs of a demonic nature. That was part of the reason the priests had taken him in. Nobody else would have anything to do with something that had such an obvious mark of evil upon it. Nobody else had the means to try to drive that evil away. Anyone else would rather die than even try, as his mother had. As his father had.
He didn’t remember the day his father was found face down in the lake on his estate. He didn’t remember the full house of visitors clothed in black, walking through the halls of the Acurey mansion and talking quietly amongst themselves or how they all shook their heads sadly knowing that his father wouldn’t have died if it hadn’t been for the horned bastard hiding under his roof, an abomination that had killed his wife by being born. He had been too young to remember or to understand what happened. His earliest memories were of cold stone rooms, cold meals and cold feet, of severe robed figures telling him that he was very sick and if he was ever to be better then he had to be a good boy. He had to do everything they told him to, carry heavy loads, pray at every hour, fast every seventh day, care for the alter, help with the sick, stay away from the normal folk. The last was most important. Only the priests and the sick had enough holy protection to withstand his presence. He had to stay inside the monastery. Only in the monastery could his sickness be contained.
Lies. Every bit of it was a lie. He had obeyed them. He had done everything he could to become better yet the sickness was too strong for him. The holiness of the monastery wasn’t enough to keep anyone safe from him and no amount of praying stopped the attacks. No amount of fasting could clean his soul and so, finally, the priests decided to pursue more drastic measures. The evil had to be purged at all costs in order to save the people that remained around him and to save his soul.
A twisted smile curled the edge of his mouth. Soul. He was quickly becoming convinced that he didn’t have one. How else could he survive what he did? The first thing they had tried to cleanse him with was water. Weights had been tied to his feet and he had been thrown into the lake. He was meant to drown and certainly thought that he was going to when the pressure began to weigh heavily upon his chest as his breathing slowly stopped. But then the demon took over. This evil that refused to leave him saved him from death, broke free of the chains and took him to the surface. It had then gone after the startled people gawking at the shore, but he had stopped it before it had gone too far. Only one person was injured, a young man who had been standing too close to the shore.
The next attempt had been fire. They had tied him to a wooden post and surrounded him with kindling so he would burn quickly. Everyone stood further away this time, the priest in charge of cleansing him throwing the torch instead of merely touching the kindling with the flame. They had left him there to burn for the entire day and it hadn’t hurt him at all. Even the post had burnt away, drifting into the air in a spiral of gray after the fabric of his clothes and the ashes of the kindling and there he stood in chains, soon to be dragged back to the dungeon, forced into a white robe and then left there while they tried to figure out what to try next.
He wasn’t sure he cared anymore. He certainly wasn’t afraid. If drowning and burning didn’t work then what would? Would death even hurt when it finally came? It really didn’t matter. There was no reason for him to live so the prospect of death did not frighten him. Part of him even thought that it might be a relief to finally be free of this mockery of existence. He didn’t belong with these people and they had told him often enough that he shouldn’t have been allowed to live as long as he did. Eventually they would find away to exterminate him.
The sound of a key scrapping its way into the lock of his cell caught his attention. He didn’t move, not even to flick his gaze to the bars where he knew the holy guards would be standing, pikes gripped firmly in the hands as they stood at the ready. It must have been a week. That was how long it had been the last time between the attempted cleansing. It was believed that this seventh day was when the people were closer to purity and thus had the strongest will against evil. On every seventh day they believed the chances of saving him were stronger.
“Get up.”
Betdes chose to ignore the command. He knew that they only wanted him up so that he could be moved to the next trial, one that might finally kill him. As much as he wanted this charade to end he didn’t look forward to being paraded before those faces with eyes filled with a mixture of fear and excitement. The excitement had been mere curiosity at the first trial, but by the second it had begun to turn into a spectacle. He knew enough that this third time could only be worse.
“He’s not moving. What should we do?”
“Make him move. You. Get up.”
This time the command was accompanied by a hard jab to his side. By moving his eyes he could see that one of the guards had jabbed him with the handle of his pike. He wondered why they didn’t use the sharp end; it wasn’t like they cared for him at all.
“He’s still not moving. Do you think he’s sick?”
“Do demon possessed get sick?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if the demon gets sick?”
“That’s stupid. Demons don’t get sick.”
“So possessed don’t get sick?”
“Stop squabbling!” A third voice cut into the argument. “He’s supposed to be brought out there. If he won’t move get in there and drag him.”
Silence followed. No one moved.
“Now!”
Quiet curses were muttered and feet shuffled towards him. He saw several pairs of white boots and the black handles of their pikes. After several moments he heard the rattle of chains as someone finally became brave enough to touch the links that were wrapped around his neck and arms. There were more around his feet as well.
“Up now,” the guard said and he felt a tug as the chains were pulled upward. Still he didn’t move.
“Come on, help me!” the guard said, pleading to his companions. More hands grasped the chains and one even found its way to the collar of his robe. They all joined their strength to give another hard tug upward.
This time he had no choice. The amount of strength yanking at him forced him out of the stillness. He cried out as he was pulled to his feet and swung his arms as far as they would go to hit his captors away. He immediately encountered two bodies and shoved as hard as he could.
One of the bodies fell back but the other gripped tighter. “Damn! Get him under control!”
Suddenly he was surrounded by pikes from the front, their sharp ends pointed at him. He froze, blinking through the shaft of light. There were at least twenty people here. Twenty. There had only been a dozen the last time. Was their fear of him growing?
“That’s it.” One of the guards nodded at him and smiled. It was a grim smile on a clean face. Betdes had seen that face before, had grown up with it nearby. It was another of the boys that had lived in the monastery with the monks, an orphan like him. No, not like him. He had been able to move on and become a guard. No one thought that he was cursed.
“Just come with us to the square. We don’t want any trouble, all right?”
Betdes just stared back at that face. Garren. That was the guard’s name. He remembered hearing the priests say it with pride. Garren was a good boy. Garren pleased the greater forces. Garren would become something great. Why couldn’t Betdes be more like Garren?
A look of puzzlement flashed across Garren’s face but he nodded slightly. “That’s better. It’s only a short walk. Come on.”
Garren walked out of the cell and headed down the corridor, casting a look over his shoulder as he went. Betdes waited a moment before following. He could feel the relief of the guards though not all of them moved their pikes away. He could see them to the sides and could sense them behind him as he followed Garren. That is what he should have been, someone that people looked up to, someone that had overcome the difficulties life had thrown at him. A test, the priests had called it. They had been chosen to be tested for something better; that is why their early lives were difficult. Garren had passed that test and was on his way to greatness. Betdes had failed.
Outside it was bright. He had to squint his eyes and look down and even then dark spots danced before him. It made it difficult to walk, especially with his legs wrapped in chains. He stumbled once and was jerked back up. He caught Garren passing a sympathetic look his way when that happened. He wanted to sneer back and show contempt for such a look but he couldn’t find the energy to do even that much.
He was stopped in what he recognized by the pavement and surrounding buildings to be the town square. There were many feet here and the air swirled with excited whispering. A woman’s laughter drifted through the buzz as well as a child’s crying. It almost sounded like it did when the spring festival came. The only thing it lacked was the cheerful music.
Betdes kept his eyes to the pavement as the sight of silver robes appeared in his peripheral vision. That would be the head of the church, a wizened old man he had known all his life. When he was a child he liked to pretend the high priest was his grandfather though as he got older he came to recognize the contemptuous sneers whenever the priest noticed the horned child and the way he would quickly find something else to do.
The high priest now raised his hands to signal the crowd to be quiet. The whispering lowered to a murmur and the priest spoke. “Righteous men and women of Solar. You know why we are here this holy day. You know of the evil in our midst. Well you know of the demon that has laid its hold on the poor son of Lord Sarsal Acurey, may his soul rest peacefully with the great gods.” He paused here to allow everyone time to move their fingers through the ritual motions used for whenever one spoke of the dead. Betdes didn’t move. “Twice already have we tried to cleanse this poor creature, and twice has the demon made itself known as it fought back.” He paused again, this time for the murmurs of agreement and little gasps of shock. “This third time will be the last. Finally we shall release what good there is in this man’s soul, purging it of its evil and cleansing our entire community!”
A smattering of applause and comments of approval drifted through the crowd though most remained silent. No one would want to miss a moment of this spectacle.
“That is right, my righteous brothers and sisters! We have deemed this matter to be most grave and have moved straight to the last trial. Only by removing the evil physically can the evil be extradited spiritually. Let us all pray as our cursed brother is brought forward to the block so that he may pass into better hands.”
A silence brimming with anticipation settled on the crowd, a silence only broken by the sound of boots and chains as Betdes was moved forward. He finally lifted his eyes to see what lay before him and had to blink several times before his sight was clear enough. There, at the center of the square, stood a low platform on top of which was a large white stone block. Beside that block stood a figure robed in black holding a large shining ax. Even when he saw this it took yet another moment for him to understand. He was to be decapitated. |
© Copyright 2006 Trintara (UN: trintara at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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