Fire of the Inquisitor

Helena stood in the back of the crowd, an unimportant observer for the day’s entertainment. It was unusually cold in the village square, even with all the bodies huddled together. She had brought a shawl to avoid being recognized easily, now she was happy to have its warmth. An hour after arriving the crowd watched as a group of men ascended the wooden stage followed by four women covered in chains.

Helena’s heart ached when she saw Isabella with the chains around her and without her ever present smile. The young woman tried to push her way closer to the platform, but she was kept back by thuggish men and obnoxious teenaged girls. The voice of her mother kept coming back to her, all those speeches about her position being temporary and her need for a husband. Helena never had any illusions about her future, but she could have persuaded her uncle to set things right before his passing.

Every had searched for the general governor after he had been reported missing. The sentries had scoured the city, the hunters and trackers had gone out into the jungles, and the rumors that the soldiers had sent spies into the goth’s lands. The old man had simply vanished from this world. In Helena’s fantasies, she had found him in the secret spot that only she and he had known about, some place secluded from the harshness of this world and containing remnants of the world her uncle had known. She would have been a hero, instead of some helpless bystander.

“The accused have been found guilty of treason!” A large man with a sword raised above his head announced.

The crowd cheered and jeered as the four women were pushed up on the stage. Acantha had a crazed look in her eye and an ominous smile on her face. Helena knew that she was not helping their case.

“You are the traitors!” the woman shouted. “You all have forgotten your mother and now you will pay with your sons.”

The crowd overwhelmingly disapproved of her odd statement, booing her and throwing rocks and garbage on the stage. Helena felt sick, almost wishing that the would just get the execution over with. As if hearing her inner thoughts the man with the large man on stage held up his sword again.

“Let us have the first one!” he yelled. The crowd cheered as Acantha was dragged to a kneeling position at his feet. She laughed and shouted curses that Helena had never heard before. That is when the bishop walked to the front of the stage and held up his hands.

“Wait,” he said loudly. “Is this really the course we should take.”

Helena felt his eyes fall on her, causing her to pull the shawl she wore on her head around her and take a step back. She had pleaded with him for hours to speak out on the women’s behalf, but he would only promise to pray about it. Now, that he actually was stepping in, she could only believe it was because of what he wanted from her.

“Of course, it is,” General Gaius answered him on the platform. “With such a small population we can’t afford dissent.”

“But with such a small population can we really afford to execute our own people.” Father Julian countered. “Shouldn’t forgiveness be our first action in these matters.”

Helena couldn’t believe the two men were using the execution as a rally to voice their election platforms. The crowd around her tough was eating up, with sides being chosen and support being shown though cheers and flying insults. Helena had heard enough and was trying to make her way somewhere quiet to think when something curious caught her eye.

On top of her uncle’s house, a cloaked figure was watching the event unfold in the town square. Helena stopped her mind from picturing her uncle’s face hiding behind that dark cloak. The young woman desperately made her way to his home, pushing anyone in her way, forced to crawl on the ground more than once. This had all been part of her uncle’s plan to test the village, see how the people would react without him. Helena knew that as soon as he revealed himself than all this insanity would end.

Helena entered her uncle’s mansion battered and bruised, but also hopeful for the first time since she had heard of the arrest. She made her way up to the third floor, to her uncle’s bedroom the last place she had seen him. If she hadn’t known he was waiting for being in this room would have been too much for her, but all she had to do was get to the roof. Helena stepped outside the balcony, the crowd still swelling below her, she climbed up the metal railing that surrounded the balcony pulled herself up to the roof, without anyone seeing her.

Standing up straight and taking a moment to compose herself, Helena approached the cloaked figure. “Uncle is that you.”

The cloaked figure jumped, surprised that someone else was on the roof. It wasn’t her uncle, it wasn’t a man either, nor was it even human. It was a goth woman, taller than most of the men in the legion, her grey skin covered in war paint of a soldier. She held a bow at her waist, a weapon the may have been the most feared in all of Orchid.

“What are you doing here?” Helena asked.

The cloaked figure turned motioned to the crowd below. She spoke with a heavy accent. “Watch sister as a new world is made.”

Helena stepped to her side and looked down at the platform. Acantha’s head was lowered on the block and the large man had his sword lowered at the back of her neck. Helena covered her mouth with her hands as she watched the large man raise his sword.

“Do it you insects, the next hell you find yourselves in won’t be so warm.” Acantha was drooling a black liquid from her mouth and eyes.

“Wait!” the bishop said, holding his hand up to the executioner. “This woman is sick!”

General Gaius tried to pull the priest away. “Kill her before she spreads her disease to everyone else.”

The bishop wrestled his way away from the soldier. “I can find out what’s wrong with her.”

“We don’t care what’s wrong with her,” the general growled, but the crowd was much more divided than he would admit. The citizens were yelling at each other, men against men, women against women, and men against women. Next to her the queen’s soldier was smiling.

“Isn’t a good strategy to know your enemy!” the bishop shouted over the crowd. The general thought about this and the rest of the crowd settled down. “For all we know killing her will unleash her sickness on the rest of us.”

The general seemed swayed by the priest’s suggestion and kneeled down to look Acantha in the eyes.

“Kill me,” the elder woman spit in his face. “This is what I was destined for.”

The general frowned and waved off the executioner. There were screams in the crowd, some angry for blood, others out of fear. Helena smiled at the triumph of rational minds and the bishop’s quick thinking. Next to her the archer was scowling.

“This isn’t how it was supposed to be.” The soldier looked at her, before removing an arrow from somewhere under her cloak. “They were supposed to tear each other apart.”

The goth woman raised her bow and aimed for the platform, the arrow glowing blue in her hand.

Helena ran to the edge of the building, sure that the soldier was aiming for the two leaders. She shouted, “Look out!”

The was panic on the stage as legionnaires scrambled to protect their general and the bishop. The cloaked woman sighed and let loose her arrow. It sparkled like light through a gemstone arching toward the platform, but it wasn’t heading for either of the two leaders. Instead, it sliced through the neck of Acantha who was standing in the middle of the platform. There was a large smile on her head as it bounced to the ground.

“What have you done?” Helena turned to the woman.

“I have started a great change.” The soldier reached out and grabbed Helena by the wrist, pulling her closer. “Let me show you the future.”