Salem's Witches (Neitherlands Book 1), page 26
Howard paused. The speech written for him—it was uncanny. It truly seemed written by him, using the conciliatory tone nobody would ever expect LeFlay to use. How the man could write so perfectly using somebody else’s voice was both impressive and scary. Mostly scary.
“We quackologists are not a barbaric bunch who aim to kill everyone opposing us. After all, twisted are the ways of Xianuu, and he could reach out to any of us. Have we the strength to resist him? Forgiveness is a rare quality, and one we all shall learn to use when needed. We must, in our journey through the path to Enlightenment, understand when to forgive and let things be.
“Let’s remember Xianuu is the barbarian here, the one who kills and destroys with no regard for anyone. We are the better people, and we must make an effort to always be. Now, as for the sentence…” He hesitated for an instant. He could give out a sentence of his own and no one would ever challenge it. On the other hand, he would be putting himself at the mercy of his own tribunal and LeFlay. He turned his head to see LeFlay give him the sternest stare. “In cases such as this, the tradition calls for the church, united as one, to agree on a punishment for the guilty party. I will not overturn this, for tradition is important and we most uphold our own rules. Let us all deliberate and come up with a fitting punishment to close this case.”
The crowd stayed silent for a short while. Then a guy spoke up, saying he supposed a lashing or two wouldn’t be a bad idea. Some other people joined in, supporting the lashing theory. Somebody else suggested prison, while another said they could get the College of Wizardry to keep her from engaging in any shenanigans and send her back to The Highwind for a while. Some suggested kicking her from the church and forbidding her from nearing any quackologist buildings, since she had never been explicitly banned. All in all, it looked like people were open to not sending her to the stake. Little by little they started dialogue with each other and it looked as if they would soon agree on a punishment that wasn’t cruel, inhumane, and lethal.
Then somebody yelled “Stake!” and everything went to hell. Immediately after, apparently everyone who had remained silent started yelling, also demanding the stake. Not only were those people a majority, but an awfully vocal one. In seconds the screams of “Stake!” filled the room, completely drowning out the voices of those looking for more reasonable, less violent solutions. After a few minutes where the yells didn’t stop and a second attempt at throwing things at Annabella failed miserably, Howard motioned for silence. This time, the silence was a lot less silent than earlier, the noise simply being replaced by loud murmuring and the occasional yell.
“I have asked the church as a whole for a sentence to this trial,” he said. “And the church has spoken. Since a gross majority has decided, I have no alternative but to sentence Annabella Bostwick, also known as the Maid of New Wakilork, to the stake. She shall be staked come Wednesday, her sentence carried along with the rest from today’s trial. May any deities that exist have mercy on her soul, and may Xianuu forgive her failed attempt at destroying this church. Court dismissed.”
15
As the night ended and dawn threatened to break, the Church of Quackology bustled with life. Its courtyard, which usually displayed large amounts of empty space, was since the night before full of people who wouldn’t miss the staking of the Maid of New Wakilork for the world.
Unbeknown to them, the surrounding area was also bustling with life as the resistance organized itself in three groups located at the north, east, and west of the headquarters. They were planning to attack from all directions.
From the northern group Leggy tried his best to discern what was going on in the courtyard. The fact that he hadn’t thought of bringing over a spyglass said lots about how prepared he was to lead a battle, not that he was supposed to lead it.
The plan, cooked up by Morrìgan, had them rushing the headquarters in a well-timed attack, which was to begin at a precise moment. A curtain was to be set on fire as soon as Annabella walked out to be staked, letting them all know when to rush the church. It was an absurd plan, and he couldn’t understand just why the right moment was to be that one instead of before the executions started, or why a burning curtain should be used to signal the right moment.
He also couldn’t figure out where Morrìgan was. She had planned the attack thoroughly, micromanaging every single action and even giving several people secret orders. However for some reason, she hadn’t bothered showing up at the command post yet.
“May we know who is in charge here?” someone said behind Leggy, leading him away from his thoughts. He turned around to find five men, all of them covered in purple clothes, their faces hidden behind cloth masks with only their eyes visible. Each carried a scimitar sheathed to their right.
“How did you people make it here?” He had thought all entrances were visible from his point of view, and he was sure those men weren’t part of their group. The odd clothes, the masked faces, the scimitars, that strange smell of spices that became noticeable once you learned of their presence…
That was exactly the description often used when speaking of members of the Assassins’ Guild—the one guild that was supposed to not exist and he had always hoped not to run into. He shrugged.
“That is unimportant,” said the man who seemed to be leading the group. At least he hadn’t unsheathed his scimitar. Maybe there was a way out still. “What we need to know is who leads this group.”
Leggy looked around, trying to find anyone to pin it on, but found nobody. All the others in the area seemed lost, as if they were expecting Morrìgan to fly down from the sky and save them. As if.
“I guess I would be it for the moment,” said Leggy. He was putting his life on the line, perhaps for the first time in his life, and hopefully for the last time. But then again, it was always possible those men had important information and he couldn’t allow it to go to about anyone else there. He’d hear it, then pass it onto Morrìgan once she decided it was fashionably late and arrived. Then that would be it. “What is it you need?” His voice was shaking.
“We have been sent here by an anonymous source,” said the man. Then all five of them unsheathed their swords and knelt before Leggy, holding their swords horizontally. “The Assassins’ Guild sends their respects,” he added.
Leggy didn’t know how to react. Hearing that the Assassins’ Guild not only existed, but backed him up, was too much to process. He sighed and closed his eyes, trying to figure out what to say.
When he opened them they were gone.
Leggy turned back around, baffled, wondering if perhaps he had eaten something poisoned recently that had caused him to hallucinate. It had to be that.
As it grew lighter, he stared down at the Quackology HQ, hoping to be able to discern the absurd signal. At least that McCormick guy was just arriving. Leggy wouldn’t be alone up here anymore.
But where the heck was Morrìgan?
Sarah walked through the back of the Quackology compound wearing a stolen overseer uniform as a disguise. The thin, dark alleys usually hidden from sight were the only paths through the labyrinth of warehouses and sheds where most new quackologists lived. It was only fitting for such a shady cult to display the pristine main building as an example of living space only to cram newcomers into tiny, crowded sheds once they finally gave in and joined.
She ran into no one as she reached her objective, not that she expected anyone to be patrolling the zone: Pretty much everyone in the compound was in the courtyard waiting for the executions to begin. She neared shed number seven and stared at its door. It was padlocked.
For a moment, or more specifically a sliver of a moment, Sarah wished Veronika was there. She would be able to immediately pick the lock using one of those abilities of hers. But then that would have meant having to deal with Veronika, who would have picked two or three fights on the way to the shed, even when the whole area was deserted. Maybe she was better off alone.
Also, she had the key to the padlock.
She opened it, then the door, looking around just in case any random wanderers ran into her. Then she entered and closed the door.
The darkened shed greeted her with silence and the smell of the precise amount of humidity needed to cultivate fungi of all kinds. Instead of being full of mushrooms, however, it was full of bunkbeds, all of them occupied, some of them hosting two people, and all of their inhabitants children ranging from six to about thirteen years old. Sarah watched them sleep for a moment, wondering if those children had had a good night’s sleep since joining the cult. Then duty called her.
She found an old whistle hanging by the right of the door, probably used by the higher-ups to torture these kids. She grabbed it and blew it, feeling guilty for disturbing children she assumed were overworked and underfed.
They all woke almost instantly, got off their beds, and started to dress slowly. Not a word came from any of them. While many a primary school teacher would have thought of this as excellent, Sarah found it worrying: Silent children were seldom happy children.
“We must leave right away,” said Sarah.
The children stared at her, apparently dumbfounded, but none said a thing.
“Just put on whatever is essential, and we’ll come back for the rest of our things later.”
None of the kids replied. Instead they left their bunks and moved towards the aisle, where they lined up. Not a word was said even when the kids were clearly sleepy and sleepy children were, in Sarah’s experience, rowdy children. It was unsettling, and, under the dim light, quite scary.
Sarah opened the doors, looked outside, and turned to the kids. “We’re going out for a walk. It’s only going to be a while, but I need you all to be quick and silent in following me. Is this clear?”
None of the kids said a thing.
Annabella had never been in favor of having the punishments and executions carried out by the Church of Quackology be public. She felt it turned them into spectacle, luring some of the more sadistic citizens to the church, if only for that horrible practice.
And that was without getting into the ethics of staking, or more specifically the lack of them.
As she knelt naked in the headquarters lobby, she learned there was one thing worse than witnessing the punishments and executions, and that was being forced to just listen to them while knowing you were next. Her pride, which she had maintained through many a torture session with LeFlay, that had left her bloodied and bruised, was threatening to depart as the most primal of fears took residence inside her.
For the first time since starting her crusade she was genuinely scared things weren’t going to go well for her.
She tried to put away those thoughts as she prayed for Xianuu to help her, hoping for another miracle. There was still time for miracles, although as the end neared she couldn’t help but doubt them more and more. She’d had undeniable proof of Xianuu’s existence, yet thanks to his complete silence she doubted her own experiences, and a part of her thought nothing would help her at all.
A slash on her back returned her to the lobby. She tried to suppress the scream but failed, and immediately afterward LeFlay laughed.
The maniac was a sadist, there was no doubt of that.
“Did that hurt? Oh dear, you’ll be facing worse really soon,” he said, standing in front of her. She was sure he had intentionally positioned himself so that she’d face his crotch. He was the kind who would do that. “After all, a whipping or two is nothing in comparison to what we have in store. Can’t you hear the two thieves being staked? You have your place there right in the middle, with them as your companions.”
Annabella tried not to pay attention to the noise from outside but it was impossible. The screams of the two poor men reached her loud and clear, while the cheers of the multitude only made the whole thing worse.
Dread filled her stomach as her pulse increased. Filled with despair, she thrashed to try and escape, only to be restrained by the chains holding her wrists and legs. As if expecting that, LeFlay put his hand on her shoulder and held her down. “By the way, I’ve got something for you.” He produced a metallic contraption from his black ceremonial robe: a ring with four screws. He had placed it on her head repeatedly during the previous days, tightening the screws so they’d dig in as she was left tied and unable to remove them. It was the worst of his tortures: She could ignore most physical pain, but it was difficult to concentrate on her own thoughts or anything at all with four screws digging into her head.
“I know you enjoyed this one, I noticed it, so…” LeFlay put the ring around her head and tightened the first screw. Annabella wanted to recoil, only there was nowhere to go. As soon as LeFlay was done, she felt the heavy weight of the sadistic thing on her head.
It was as if, by putting the contraption on her head, she had been finally condemned.
“You’re going down, Antoine,” she said. “My army will come, and—”
LeFlay put his hand on her mouth and shushed her. “They will come indeed, I know that. And when they do, they’ll find an army waiting for them. A particular one, made up by the most sacred of people. And they’ll slaughter them.”
Annabella stared at LeFlay, aghast. “So you’re really going to—”
“I’ll do whatever necessary to show the world how horrible the criminals in your army are. Now, my dear, your moment is about to come. The two sods are done for, and we have a crowd waiting for their main course.”
LeFlay rose and went out onto the makeshift stage where the executions were taking place.
As the doors opened, and Annabella glimpsed the people and heard them cheering, she realized there was no saving her anymore.
Dominion Park was quiet and still, the morning sun barely starting to warm. The songs of the birds flying around and sun’s reflections on the morning dew made the place look like paradise, a stark contrast to almost everywhere else in the city.
As Sarah arrived with the children following her, she noticed none of those things. She was too busy to care much about the beauty of nature or how pleasurable life could be. Instead she searched until she saw a woman kneeling among the flowers.
The nun.
She noticed Sarah too, for she immediately got up and approached. Sarah turned around to make sure the children had indeed arrived with her, hoping none had been lost on the way. She didn’t know how many there were, so she could only hope those were all of them.
“Are these the kids?” said the nun, looking past Sarah and at the army of half-naked, half-asleep children of Quackology. “I really thought your friend had set me up, perhaps as part of a bad joke, or—”
“The only bad joke here is a church using children as a front line in a battle,” said Sarah. “I’m sorry we’ve put you up to this, but we weren’t going to risk handing the children to someone only to have them sent back to fight, this time for the other team.”
The nun assented, staring at the kids. She went to them and put her hand on the head of the first two, as if counting them…or blessing them. She did the same to the other ones, while the children barely acknowledged her. Sarah hoped the children were just sleepy, and not permanently damaged by whatever they could have gone through as part of their “training.”
“I’ll keep them safe,” said the nun, “but tell me, how are things going there?”
“I’m about to find that out. I’d love to sit and chat and perhaps share tea and cookies, but a battle is about to start and I should be there to help. Somebody needs to make sure those guilty of this pay.”
The nun stopped blessing the children and looked at Sarah. “May Dynah be with you and guide your actions toward fairness,” she said, putting her hand on Sarah’s head. Sarah flinched for a moment, then got ahold of herself. “And I hope next time we meet it is under less…grim circumstances.”
Sarah nodded then returned to the compound’s secret entrance. The battle was certainly starting, and her friends would be waiting for her to close the case once and for all.
Veronika entered a nondescript office on the second floor of the headquarters, which she expected belonged to one of the many overseers the church employed to keep an eye on pretty much everyone. How the resistance still managed to infiltrate them without much difficulty spoke wonders of the quality of said overseers, who had clearly been chosen through a process consisting of plenty of nepotism and very few skill tests.
She went to the one window where she had an excellent view of the crowd in the courtyard and the stage with its two staked men. In moments Annabella would be brought out and the attack would begin. She returned to the fireplace, produced a candle from her robe, and lit it. She then returned to the window.
She stopped for a moment. Of the many, many flaws of hers that people pointed out, usually because they didn’t like their current faces and felt they needed a new one, pyromania had never made it to the list. She wondered if her next step would add it, although she expected she wouldn’t: Morrìgan had been clear that the curtains in the building were all flame-retardant and would extinguish themselves after a few minutes.
Then again, the whole plan didn’t make much sense. The idea that they’d have to burn some curtains when the maid came out in order to signal the beginning of the attack was ridiculous. Whoever was in charge may as well just look for the maid walking outside. It sounded like whoever had come up with it just wanted to see the building burn, but then again this had been Morrìgan, who seemed to be really invested in their fight. Although, all things considered, that woman was strange and—
The cheering got louder. Veronika looked outside, where Annabella had just stepped onto the stage. Up on the hill they’d be waiting for her signal. Setting her worries aside and risking the rise of a hitherto undiscovered pyromania in her, she set the curtain on fire and left the room to meet her friends. Her assigned task was done, but the trio still had more to do.
